


The pain will ease if I can learn

by imperiality (orphan_account)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: : ), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Musicals, References to Depression, Rent References, Suicidal Thoughts, bad boy keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 11:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15000287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/imperiality
Summary: The theatre is always hurting for men. Whether big ballerinos or tenors or actors themselves, the stage can never seem to find men enough to fill the roles. She likes when the stage is actually occupied by enough cast members to occupy the roles.“We need a Roger!” “We need someone with the right attitude.” “We need someone with the right chemistry."They needed a well-fitting, chemical, residential, singing guy maybe perhaps 2 weeks ago. And yet, no one has stepped up. No one has delivered. Already the auditions have passed and their cold read labored no fruit for their efforts, either.Just who comes to Allura's aid in her struggle to preform Rent?





	The pain will ease if I can learn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zharena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zharena/gifts).



> Reminder that next week, I'm orphaning a good majority of my fics, so do what you gotta do

The theatre is always hurting for men. Whether _big ballerinos_ or tenors or actors themselves, the stage can never seem to find men enough to fill the roles.

_Never? Why that simply cannot be right._

_Never_ is hyperbolic, yes. The search becomes easier the larger the stage becomes. Grade school gymnasiums are the ribbons that budding performers cut. Then come the respectable stages, actual labyrinths devoted solely to the art that only get bigger and grander from high school upwards.

Allura likes the big ones. The stages on which she can twirl under burning lights, letting her frets and worries diffuse beneath them. She likes being able to have space on stage with the whole cast at curtain call.

She likes when the stage is actually occupied by enough _cast members_ to occupy the roles.

“We need a Roger!”

“Just make Lance the Roger, it’s not a big deal.”

“‘Not a big deal.’ Pidge, you're tech. Go back to lights and perch on it like you belong. As I was saying-“

Pidge slumps away to her alleged lights perch, while cast and crew alike all consternate over this one unfilled slot.

“Lance can't be Roger, he’s already Angel. Can you even imagine?”

Allura doesn't want to have to imagine a time where she has to be so vulnerable with Lance for paid, semi-public consumption.

“Couldn't someone from the Support Group work?”

The collective consensus is a resounding “absolutely not.”

No one from the crew is stepping up. Sure auditions were maybe a bit last minute, but it shouldn’t be this hard to find a Roger this late in the game, should it?

“We need someone with the right attitude.”

“We need someone with the right chemistry."

Chemistry? Yeah, chemistry.

“We need someone from this damn college.”

“We need someone who can _sing_!”

They needed a well-fitting, chemical, residential, singing guy maybe perhaps 2 weeks ago. And yet, no one has stepped up. No one has delivered. Already the auditions have passed and their cold read labored no fruit for their efforts, either.

“The show must go on.” Matt, the discouraged, disgruntled stage manager leaves with all the bitterness as his position ought.

The show must find a Roger.

_I need to find someone to love._

Allura simply cannot let any more time pass without finding her Roger. She needs to have the right chemistry with the person they cast, but more importantly, Rolo needs to. Lance _could_ do it, but not when he was _made_ to be Angel. The thought was quickly dismissed. Everyone is too strong in their roles, doesn’t have the It to be blood brothers with Rolo, doesn’t have the right grunge, doesn’t have the right gentle to be with Allura.

The show is already below the wire. There's no more time to lose.

Allura, having _nothing_ to lose, pulls up group chats to all of her classes. In a tone only just that shy of begging, she alerts them all her plight. Communicates her frantic desperation. Alerts them all her preferences.

She gets little more than a thumbs up from any of them in return, and… waits. Waits for some kind of message back. Waits for some kind of ray of hope. She waits for 3 dots blinking in a message to be received, but no hope comes her way.

The woman lays herself down to sleep that night with not a word back on any of her chats. How low does she need to prostrate herself to find even just an aftertaste of possibility? Why does hope have to be so difficult?

Then, as she pulls the blanket over her head to shut her stress away, a soft _ping_ echos out from her phone. Perhaps another message from Lance singing to her his parts from the show. It could be Matt, fretting to her again over all his _hows_. _How are they going to pull this off? How are they going to make this work? How are they going to find a Roger in time?_

Dismally, Allura pulls the phone over her weary face. She doesn’t know if she can pull herself up out of even one more piece of bad news. Her soul cannot possibly bolster itself enough.

Her expectations are already in the negative degrees. Allura’s hopes are so far past the horizon they are scarce to be seen. But then, she reads on. She reads the message over once. The words and her comprehension are not breaching the disconnect. She reads it over again.

“ _Hey, Allura. I know it's late, but I thought of a guy for your Rent show thing. His name’s Keith, here’s his number-“_

_Could it... could it be?_

She reads on, reads on.

_“Hope it works out”_

_It is. It is!_

A tentative ray of hope shines that Allura is careful not to run away with. She breathes out slowly. She pulls her comforter over her shoulders again and falls asleep with a blooming smile.

As soon as she wakes up next, she whips her hands out to grab her phone. Her fingers can’t type the new number fast enough, her hope eclipsing trivialities like “rationale” or “temperateness”. Cordially she begins her message, making herself stick to periods lest her excitement turns off the last hope she has. Exclamations are for when her last hope sticks an audition. She can effervesce over when they get their standing ovation. Ebullience is for when this Keith character makes it far enough to join them when they crash Matt’s house at the afterparty.

Allura’s message reads,

 _“Hello, Keith. My name is Allura and I’ll be your Mimi in our production of Rent._ ” Too formal? She’d rather formality over blatant desperation. “ _A mutual acquaintance gave me your number and said you'd make a good candidate. If you could come to our next rehearsal, today at 4:30, we’d-“_ Love? Appreciate? Be most enchanted? _“-Be delighted to have you there._ ”

Send.

More wait.

Every hour on the hour, Allura checks her phone for any message back throughout the day. She awaits responses as severe as “screw off you meddling whore” to “I too, would be most delighted to join your company. I look forward to the camaraderie and fellowship by acting with likeminded individuals.” The in-between of crass and cordial is very slim.

The in-between of her calm and calamity is slimmer, still.

Classes pass and Earth moves and she frets but still no word back. The last shreds of her frothy skepticism stop her from telling Matt or Coran about their potential cast member. No use getting more hope up than her own.

Still, the wait is making her heart and head burn. At this point, she’d prefer being called a meddling whore than hearing nothing at all. Something, something, to let her hope _ignite,_ or be brutally doused.

A _ping_.

But her bloody teacher is droning and teaching and boring. She has to let her coiled attention remain on the lecture, but the harder she hones her focus, the more it divides. She _could_ just… take a peek.

Discreetly, slowly and bursting at the seams, Allura reaches for her phone in her bag. The _ping_ could have been Coran bemoaning the franticness of he show. It could have been Hunk trying to distract both her and himself with a quick check-in. She lifts her phone to her bent head and flicks her eyes down to its glowing screen. The crisp black text delivers words that she knows her mind is equipped to interpret, but the disconnect is again to difficult to breach.

She reads the message once. Flicks her eyes back up to pretend she's listening to class. Flicks her eyes back down.

It reads,

“ _Cool. I’ll be there.”_

The stark brevity in Keith’s message is not an extremity for which Allura prepared herself. Her shock is so acute, she reads the message at least thrice over.

On the fourth try, it clicks.

_Keith is coming to audition tonight!_

Now to tell Coran and Matt? No, no, hardly, not yet. Her hope is hers and hers alone.

_Mighty hasty words to say already, Allura._

No! That’s not what she meant. Keith is the cast’s to share.

She’s going to stop right there.

Now what to reply to… “ _Cool_.” She groans under her breath. “ _I’lll be there_.” As she slips her phone back into her bag, she wills her nerves to settle and pretends to be studious for the whole class more. She thinks her attempt was successful, ruse accomplished. Class passes and ends but she comes no closer to drafting her response to Keith.

_What to say, what to say?_

She reaffirms the details. She can do that much.

“ _Wonderful! We look forward to seeing you in the blackbox. If you don’t mind coming a little early so you can talk with our director Coran, that would be much appreciated.”_

Then maybe about a blink, a breath of air and a heartbeat later, her phone pings.

Keith. Already. He says to her “ _No problem.”_ A little pause. Ellipses. He continues. “ _I’ve actually been meaning to stop by the blackbox for a while._ ”

_Is that so._

Allura is never averse to making fast friends. Quickly she dives herself in, testing the waters of his congeniality.

“ _You’ve been meaning to? What does that mean?”_ Should she add the squiggle? Is it too soon for that? She adds the squiggle in for good measure. “ _What does that mean~?_ ” she amends.

Instantly he comes back with, “ _I used to sing.”_

Sing. Keith used to sing. This is perfect, simply perfect. She could not have asked her hope to be any stronger if she tried.

“Used to” gives her mixed emotions, however. Used to. Does he not any longer? He cannot possibly be Roger if he doesn’t sing. Used to. Did he sing exclusively, but took a break from it? Used to. What does Keith do, now?

Allura loves the dig but she knows when the pry is too deep. Too soon. She leaves the fires of her curiosity to be kindled another time.

“ _That’s great! Well whenever you want a tour of the blackbox or theatre, just let me know.”_

No more ellipses. No more message. Allura leaves their conversation as it is, and smiles for her hope overcoming her fret. She lets the flames of _maybe_ climb and lick up over the waves of her worry.

She lets her hope take manifest.

Sending a message to Coran and Matt, she drifts perchance to dream.

Not all hope is lost.

Hope may not be lost but her attention surely is. Classes could not have stretched any longer, her patience spread thin like her awareness. Physically her body rushes from classes to her superfluous half-shift at the coffee shop, but mentally spiritually emotionally and metaphysically, her mind races with the rapids of _what ifs_.

_What if Keith’s not the one? What if he “used to” sing too long ago? What if he doesn’t come to rehearsal?_

She knows it was just an offer, nothing official, but what if he doesn’t come early to see the blackbox, either? What if what if what if.

What if she let her hope inflame too far?

_Wouldn’t be the first time._

Crashing and panting into the shop, she calls out to her coworkers and whips her apron on. She pulls her headband over and clocks herself in. The din is little comfort to her worries, pressured all around her, threatening to plug up her ears.

The sun is a lousy, distant companion. Her coworkers are only fractionally more commiserative.

Time keeps marching but she is stationary behind her counter. Enough, enough. Enough of this dull. Enough of the waiting. Enough of what if’s.

Allura busies herself around the kitchen, drifting in and out with busywork and menial tasks. How does she stop herself from being so bored? How does she stop the bloody _what if’s_?

She loiters around the cashier, chatting with the barista and the occasional customer that strolls in. She counts the minutes until she has to pull out the cookies. She counts the seconds until she can wipe down another counter. She counts the crawling hours until rehearsal. She slides her back up and down the wall next to the cashier as she bends her knees, withering in the wait.

Her head faces the floor.

The door chimes.

She whips her head up. She draws in a breath, about to call out with her best “ _Hello, welcome_ ” but it dies where it rose.

Each step taken towards her lets Allura take in something new from her incoming patron. The man’s wearing sweats.

_Slouchy._

He’s wearing a faded tee.

_Tight._

He’s wearing a leather jacket and a puffy coat and a woven beanie and the most piercing gaze she’s ever seen in the flesh.

_Curious._

And absolutely out of her type.

He approaches the counter. She smiles up to his height. He looks into her _soul_.

“What can I get you?”

He lays his wallet on the counter, gets comfortable. Offers a brief smile of his own.

_Distracting. Disarming._

“Just a medium coffee.”

_Delicious._

“For here or to go?”

Taking this man’s order really is on the bottom of Allura’s task list, but she can only resist everything but temptation. His eyes keep drawing her in. The angles of his face just beg to be held. All of his clothes hugs and drapes in the best way and Allura can’t look away.

He says, “for here.”

She says, “perfect.”

The man pulls out his card for her to swipe, and she takes it with delicate fingers.

She can’t help the half-second gaze to his own hands.

_Smooth._

Behind her, the barista watches the whole scene unfold with a poorly diffused smirk. She makes no move to pour the coffee either, just waits for Allura to make her next play.

She swipes the card, smiles to the man, looks down to the screen and

_Wait._

Flips the screen over for him to sign. Looks over his face. Tries to match a name to a face, words to a wardrobe but everything about her day has already been stretched too far.

Hardly computing she pours his medium medium, hands it over with a starched smile and goes into the kitchen with cotton in her eyes and head.

 _What if he’s_ ** _the one_**?

Allura putters some more. She plants herself dead center in the kitchen, time no longer crawling but whipping around her.

_Could it be could it be could it be?_

If she going to let herself dare to hope so far?

She hears the bell chime once more. It’s him again. She can’t even make eye contact, what is wrong with her? The barista gives out the second pour. Then, as she pulls herself from her erosive hysteria, she makes a deal.

“Plaxum?”

“Yeah, Allura.” Her tone tells everything. Plaxum knows all.

“Here’s what I’m going to do.” She lays it out. “That guy-“

“With the beanie?”

“Yes Plaxum, with the beanie. He’s already come in twice already, hasn’t he?”

Plaxum is enchanted to know where this is going. “He has.”

“Okay.” Allura nods. “Okay okay. Well if he comes in one more time, I’m going to ask him if he is who I think he is.”

Plaxum stops redundantly wiping around the espresso machine. “Who do you think he is?”

“I… I swiped his card and it shows the customer’s name, right? Canny or uncanny as it may be,” she shakes her head “he shares a name with someone I’m soon supposed to meet. Maybe. Hopefully. Later this evening.”

“Coincidence? A common name, you think?” Plaxum asks as she hands Allura another dirty mug.

She picks it up to set it down. “I don’t believe in coincidence.”

Before Allura even has time to putter around the kitchen again, before she can even pick up the mug, before she can draw another breath, the door chimes. He walks forward.

Plaxum looks over. It’s a challenge and a dare.

Allura siphons her courage to her heart; it’s now or never. She glides herself to the front of the barista station, moulds on another supersonic smile and holds her hand out. She takes his cup. He takes a step forward, then a step back.

_It’s now or never._

Pushing the words from her chest and out her lips, she recites to him her practiced interaction before her nonsensical “good graces” can fight them back down.

“Hi so,” she looks him in the eye as he hands her the empty coffee mug. “When I swiped your card on the register, I saw your name come up and-“ she’s already seeing the suspicious eyebrow raise.

_Keep it simple, stupid! What are you trying to say?_

“-It caught my eye. Your name is Keith, correct?”

“Yeah?”

So far so good.

“Well, I-“ she sets the mug down. Places a hand over her chest. “My name is Allura.”

His expression clears. As a matter of fact, she would go so far as to say Keith’s face blanks. He blinks to her. Sweeps his eyes over her face. Shifts his weight.

“Who are you with?”

She knows exactly what he means.

“The Arusian theatre group.”

He tucks his chin back. “No kidding.” He laughs (more like a wisp of air,) “You’re that Allura.”

“I’m that Allura.” She points to him, “Which makes you _that_ Keith.”

“No way.” He runs his fingers through his- _not thinking about it_ \- hair. “I don’t know what’s crazier, the fact that I would meet you here of all places, or that I haven’t met you before.” He cross-contaminates his sigh with a jagged groan. “This is nuts.”

It’s all Allura can do to stop herself from bursting at the seams. Screaming on the spot.

“It is!”

The Keith character holds out a- _not looking down to it-_ hand. “Keith Kogane.”

She laughs, “You may as well just get used to calling me Mimi. That is if everything goes as hoped, of course.”

But Keith shakes his head. “No.” He insists, “Your name.”

Like gazing into the pale full moon, looking at Keith sends Allura into hazy hypnotic shock.

_Does that make him moonshine?_

Why that’s ridiculous.

_The affect is the same._

She grasps his hand in hers. “Allura, then.”

They shake on it. Her pulse is echoed and heavy. Keith’s palm is warm and diffusive. The moment is too long.

Plaxum just watches, watches.

Then the moment breaks. Everything around and about Allura is up in the air, swaying on the fence but she can hook her mind back down. But she can thrust some word up. She can’t him leave with a silence so haphazardly she offers, “I’ll see you at rehearsal.”

So Keith says back, “You will.” Then takes his leave.

Like a sleek panther prowling, he rolls out of the shop. Allura gazes, gazes.

The zoom of her conscious mind comes quickly back to focus. Plaxum only snickers and looks entirely too knowing, so Allura resumes her slugging around the kitchen. After time resumes, it goes altogether too fast.

After Keith leaves, Allura can’t seem to catch her breath.

Before she knows it, the barista pats her on the arm and points towards the clock. Before she can think about finding her bearings, her shift is over, her relief is coming and she’s clocking out.

She feels someone occupying her body taking off her apron. Someone that wears her skin rides to the front of the blackbox, walks towards the building and opens the door with her hands. A person, manipulating her flesh while she rides on the coast of her subspace, steps and steps and moves and breaths while her mind keeps buzzing away.

_What if what if._

Half the cast is already waiting, milling around and stretching and warming up when Allura walks to the wings of the blackbox. The crowd multiplies. The room heats. Kolivan leads their voices in scales and jumps. Allura is still lord and master over the hurry up and wait.

Then Keith walks through.

_What if what if what if._

The sound continues.

Allura waves him over. She wonders if every time she meets him is going to feel like the first.

She excuses them both, then pulls Coran aside. When Keith comes into Coran’s view, his eyes bulge.

“Is this our Roger?”

Just a nod and a simple _yeah._

They get to talking. Coran pulls Keith further aside, so she takes that as her sign to return. On far upstage left, Allura hurries and _waits_ for her cue. The music plays. On backstage right, the casual easy lilt of Keith’s voice floats over keys poorly substituting guitar.

It all sounds well with her soul.

Then the sounds dim down.

Keith walks forward. He’s given a script. Without a single word of greeting or commiseration, he’s being hemmed into the fold. He stands up center stage and joins them.

“ _Is he going to be the Roger?_

_Is he seriously going to join this late?_

_Does he know what he’s getting himself into?_

_Does he even_ sing _?”_

Next to Rolo for their makeshift Avenue B lot, Keith holds his script with still hands. Like a snide word at the end of a fight or the snap on the downbeat, he slips too smooth into his character.

On the sidelines, their pretend wings, their brittle muted stalemate, cast and crew holds their breath for Keith’s first note.

_The pear shaped tone._

“You say you’ve sung before?”

A nod.

“And you say you’ve heard Rent before?”

A shrug.

“How well do you know the music?”

Keith stops a moment. Looks down to Kolivan. “Well enough.”

Not glib, not snark. Simply said.

“Well my boy,” Coran smiles. Beams. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Kolivan presses out a quick scale, then Rolo flicks his eyes down to his folder.

“We begin on Christmas Eve…”

Keith follows along to Mark’s mini monologue. Rolo gets to singing. Keith shifts his stance. Rolo whips his head over to Keith with a “Tuning the Fender guitar he hasn’t played in a year.”

Without a hitch, a little lowly, a little grouchy, Keith comes back with a “This won’t tune.”

Rolo continues.

“You talking to me?”

Rolo concludes.

They speak sing and it’s nothing jaw dropping or traffic stopping but they know to wait. Wait wait.

Actors and dancers all drift in and over and across the room. They all move in liquid tandem. Keith looks frazzled in the least. Allura keeps watch over it all. It’s chaos as they pseudo-block the choruswide pandemonium.

Lance and Hunk have their moment. They barely look down to the script. No one bats an eye. They reroute to Keith’s guitar solo, shoving his heart and soul and voice under a microscope.

He starts off soft.

It ends glorious.

Allura doesn’t know who starts the applause. She doesn’t know when she joins in. She doesn’t know how she let herself be so without hope and without faith and without trust when Keith said he used to sing. Too be perfectly fair, he never said he could sing _like that._

Too many things about Keith carve their way into her heart. His deep, dagger-sharp eyes. His rich, corduroy smile. His gravel, edged, melodious, warm and cool harsh and sweet breathy and steely voice that keeps reeling her in. Casting her out.

She doesn’t know how she couldn’t hear it sooner. _Why did he only used to sing_? What else is he hiding from her.

She doesn’t know how she’s going to blow her candle out.

The rest of the show passes without much more incident. Lance takes every excuse during his stage time to grind over anyone and everyone. Pidge needles her brother about frivolous tech tasks. Coran makes minimal interruptions, scratching his thoughts onto his industrious notepad. Rolo, Nyma and Plaxum have a chemistry on and offstage that no one can put their finger on. That no one wants to touch with a twenty foot pole.

The energy is empathic, shared and limitless as cast and crew weave around each other. Breath into each other. Each show brings a new rush Allura can’t get enough of. She is only barely closer to believing that Keith is now a part of it.

By the time the finale begins, they’ve all melded so close together, Kolivan has to pry bodies off his piano. As a final safeguard they appoint Keith a hasty understudy and all before they can think to catch their breath, it’s curtain call. They bypass bows this time, but by the time rehearsal ends, it’s already indigo deep outside.

Coran pulls Keith aside one last time. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get you all to know each other more, this time,” he says. “We’ll do some warm-ups next time, hmm?” he says. “Get you all more acquainted.” He lets him go with a pat to the shoulder, “You did very well, Keith. Keep it up.”

Keith bows his head. “Yes sir,” he says.

He and Allura find each other once the bulk of the cast members take their exodus.

“So how do you feel?” Allura asks with a smile. When she looks back to check all of Keith’s silent communications, she finds him already smiling back.

Charmed, charmed she is charmed.

_If only I can give him promised land._

“I feel great.” He shakes his shoulders down. He flexes out his fingers. “I’ve never acted before so I’m glad I don’t have to do a lot of it.” Sharp exhale. “Just sing until I’m raw.”

“You’re right.” Carefully, bravely and entirely brash, Allura lays a hand on his upper arm. “ And where did that voice come from! We’ve done a ton of musicals before, why only now have you joined?”

Keith shrugs. “I was…” his eyes wander everywhere and nowhere. “Taking a break. Of sorts.” They finally stop their wandering to land on hers. “You have a beautiful voice. You’re right, I should have come before.”

“Yeah, you-“

_Wait say what?_

“And I know I said I know Rent and everything, but I forgot how uh, close we’d be having to work together.”

_And is that…_

“Oh Keith, this is Rent. I don’t know how you could have possibly forgotten.” He runs his thumb over his fingers. Awkward chuckle. She tries to smooth the frays, “Well I must thank you again for agreeing to do this. I think you have quite literally saved the show.”

“I’m just helping where I can.” He lowers his hands to his sides. “I figured it was time for a change.”

“You don’t know how much you’re helping, then.”

A sudden surge of bravery floods over Allura. A forest fire catches from the base of her heart, and licks its tendrils to the canopy of her head. The flames and ashes spill out her mouth, and bid Keith,

“If there’s anything I can help you with, please let me know.”

It sounded scarier in her mind.

But then Keith throws a new match to her and all she’s running on is fumes.

“If you’re uh… If you’re free this week, could you help me more with the script?”

_It is… It is!_

“Yeah, yeah yeah!” Yeah. Perfect. “I’d-“ Love? Be delighted to? Appreciate? “Absolutely help you out with whatever you need. We won’t start really blocking until next week so we can just run over lines.”

They walk out the theater building together, him walking and tapping the script to his other hand. Allura makes his opaque shadow, his better half, gliding and keeping in step.

Under his breath, Keith says “ _We’ll do it for science._ ”

Oh but she caught that. Allura falls into his step and answers, “No science here. It’s _magic_.”

He grins. “Magic.”

Allura lays a gentle hand on his elbow. He looks down to it, looks back up to her. Baseless, directionless, he doesn’t know what to do in return. So tentatively, laying a hand on her bicep, each finger of Keith’s hands leaves chilled shocks in their wake. The moment is more than a parting. The words are more than a goodbye.

The woman placed her hand first, but she cannot make herself to pull away. Keith lets the moment last as long as she wants. For her own sake, she fights her eager down and pulls her hand away and lets the moment end.

They return home. Keith hops on the back of his bike and Allura swings her legs over her scooter and when they settle in, they spend the rest of the night conjuring their magic. They decide to meet at the coffee shop later. 

Allura spends the rest of her night making herself stop and start tastings of whimsical dreams.

 _To be held._ She buries her face deeper to her pillow.

 _To be sought._ She wills the image of deep eyes to and away from her mind.

 _To be wanted._ Too hot she becomes so she cools herself down by the overshadow of the performance before her.

No more spells cast, no charms for Allura to ward- she would still attest that night is only for the supernatural.

_To taste magic._

Truly magic, it must be. The stars aligned. Syzygies and vibes and auras aligning; she has a blessed day off. Allura arrives early and situates herself on a couch near the front. She flips back and forth with the script. She ruminates, pours over on their scenes together. She can’t stop herself from the cyclical checking of her phone, to her script, to the door. Back again.

She jostles her leg. She taps her script against it. Drumming her fingers against her thigh, she doesn’t turn her head up the next time the door chimes.

Then a pressure on the couch. Dark pants. Light arms. Dark hair. Allura opens her mouth without giving the presence the time of day, intent only on their eschewing.

Her new couch mate looks her way. The words fizzle down.

“Keith!”

He slings his backpack over his lap, pulls out his script and finally finally smiles to her. “Hey. Sorry I’m late.”

“Not a problem.” Maybe she scoots closer to him. Maybe the chill from outside is wrapping its way inside. Maybe they can look over to each other better this way. The only problem, maybe, is that she can’t fully gauge Keith’s response from where she sits.

They get to work. They get to reading. Neither of them bother with anything that isn’t an issue, exclusively focusing their time on the lines Keith can’t seem to drill in. Notes that Allura can’t seem to land. Sometimes they hum to each other.

Quickly, their dive into the script hits without a splash. Quickly, their time shifts to another direction.

Keith asks about _How long you’ve been doing this stuff?_ Allura tells, then asks _Where did you used to sing?_ He says _One of my foster moms put me in chorus._ She says _That it explains it all._ Questions raise and fold, saying and saying back and forth.

Allura delights in Keith’s smile growing wider and wider. She listens to his past with rapt attention, _I used to hang with a bad crowd,_ and she can’t think of how their chemistry could align any better.

_Syzygies. Vibes. Auras._

It’s bright and purely supernatural, _magical,_ but her hands don’t seem to think so. Neither do her legs. Not her hands or legs or her ever-tarnished rationale. Her mind says _magic_ while her hands say _panic._ Without, the conversation drifts and flows down its own waters. It feels astral. Within, a jittering that she can’t and will not name makes her hands shake. It makes her foot tap with restlessness and makes it harder to focus.

 _What’s wrong_? She implores to her head and heart and hands. _What’s wrong_? She demands of her attention, wrenching it from the aimless drifting that gets progressively farther to reel back in.

Time drifts along with her attention, without her permission. Their time together concludes but their spells had only begun to be cast.

_Charmed. Charmed._

He has class, she has class and Venus falls out of alignment.

Her hope is fuming warmer and warmer.

Class ends.

Rehearsal begins again. Coran rounds them all to the front of the blackbox, appoints Lance to lead stretches. Keith keeps a raised brow the whole time, silently following along. He doesn’t know what to make of Lance’s finger guns. He’s more receptive to Allura’s smile of apologetic understanding.

Coran herds them all to the sides of the blackbox. He makes them all hold hands, stretch out into a circle and says “Let’s welcome Keith.”

Allura’s sure they all know who Keith is by now.

He offers a little smile and wave back. Allura’s heart hurts in how much Keith is is is Roger.

They all break down their shame and comfort in the circle, all of it going over Keith’s head. She stands in a space between Nyma and Rolo directly across from Keith. She can’t catch his eye as his keep going everywhere; around his own person, watching the flailing and lax actors next to him.

Coran claps his hands. The actors disperse. Keith and Rolo are ushered to center down stage. Kolivan leads them in with a few measures. They hum themselves in.

It begins.

They resume the weave and the bend and dance around each other. Coran is vocal in his interruptions this time, sparing no detail while holding all tact. Keith respects that about him. Allura awes at Keith just the same, no less than the first time.

In the moment, she holds her breath and chills her pulse as she waits for her cue. After rehearsal, she looks back and wonders where a full two hours went.

After rehearsal ends, Keith pulls her arm to the side of the building and she wonders how she let herself go so easily. She wonders why her guard is so far up in the first place.

The crisp air braces and brackets around Allura. It sharpens the details of Keith’s eyes. His fresh cotton smile. His solid but languid posture.

He inhales, and the woman can just see every tendril of air work through him. She breathes out, and it curls around her blue and purple. Periwinkle. Everything is softer in this light. So too is his voice.

As he speaks, he keeps his hands grasped over his elbows, tucked in close by his sides. Allura can’t stop herself from her flights of fancy; fancying herself to wedge herself between them.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

The air saturates. Her hands rub over her thighs. “What about?” She jumps to the worst.

“I wanna tell you about me.”

She nods her acquiescence. “Please go ahead.”

“I don’t want you to worry about me.”

She frets tenfold.

“I guess I just… want you to know where I’m coming from.”

She listens weary.

“You remember when I said I used to hang with a bad crowd right?”

_Oh heavens what if this is about them._

“And you remember how I was a foster kid, right?”

_Good grief, what if this is about that?_

Keith tightens his hands around his clenched biceps. He pushes on. “Well.” He relaxes. “Allura.” Stiffens. “I was a bad guy when I was… going through all that.”

Allura finds it wise to stop figuring where any of _this_ is going to lead where. 

“Okay,” is all she can think to say. She lets none of her emotion give herself away. A calm smile stays exactly where she pins it. 1

“I was a _bad guy_ , Allura.” His eyes are wide, almost panicked when they look up to her. “I don’t like that part of me, I’ve been trying so hard to change I-“ he shakes out his hair. “I was so angry. At everything. I was doing molly, acid; I thought if I didn’t want to be angry I could be something else.”

“I see,” is all she feels appropriate to respond.

“And I…” he keeps grinding on. “I’m trying harder to be good. I’ve been trying harder to be a good guy, and I wanted to tell you that because I don’t want to lose you.”

Her smile stays pinned and plastered. Allura’s legs stay still and composed but her hands they shake and shake. Her mind no longer says _must panic_ but cries louder with _must slow._

 _Why are my palms jittering so fast? Why is my heart racing so hard? Why is my head diffusing so much, why are his words connecting so slow, why is he telling me so_ soon?

Allura knows that men are faster in their feelings but just howfast, she has never known.

“I’ve lost so much, Allura.” Like warm-up, he can barely meet her eye. Now, his wandering is hammered with the pressure of his haste. “I used to steal from people. I took so much and I was really lost for a long time and it wasn’t until one of the last families I was with that they finally set me straight.” He keeps her close to his vicinity. He starts to speak up the with urgency of his passion. “To be honest, I made myself lose a lot of what I had. I made so many people lose their patience with me, give up their hope in me.” Keith breathes in deep. “But I don’t want to do that with you, too.”

“Of course.” It’s all Allura has presence of mind to even think.

But he waits a moment. Shifts his weight between his feet.

He’s waiting for a response.

From whatever coherent part of her mind that still remains, Allura answers with as much grace and honesty as she can muster.

“Thank you for telling me all of that, Keith.”

Already, the truth in her conviction she calls into her own question. She’s not feeling particularly grateful in this particular moment.

“Thank you for trusting me to say all that; I can’t imagine how it must have been like or how hard it must have been to be raised in foster care. It’s good that you know who you want to be, and are working towards being that person. That takes a lot of strength,” she tests the waters by pressing a hand over his wrist, “and not many people have that to overcome their past.”

His sparkling eyes keep getting to her. His skin is so terribly warm and his wrist, she can feel, has been rubbed smooth by his leather riding gloves. His wavering, worried smile is ever blending into the grey sky above them.

All of it adds together, pulling the next words from Allura unbidden.

“I care about you, Keith. And I find that…” she grips him tighter. Says it clearer. “I don’t want to lose you, either.”

_Already?_

She can’t help herself from being swept away. She can’t armor herself from being carved into.

Quickly realizing, she can’t take those proclaimed words back.

From the side of the theatre building, Keith and Allura look to and into each other’s eyes, paying no mind to the white tendrils their spoken breath leaves behind. They turn not their heads to the walking and strolling students and teachers around them. They don’t raise up the anchor from the submerged moment.

Allura feels the waves washing over and over her head, pulling her deeper. Sinking.

She couldn’t come up for air even if she wanted to.

Her touch raises. Her hand ascends. A hand on a wrist becomes a palm on the arm. Becomes her weight leaned into his. Becomes her arms wrapped around his, shielding herself from the creeping periwinkle frost around them. From the deliberate ignorant eyes looking onto them.

Becomes her arms chained solidly around her neck, silent and insistent in their begging.

_To be held._

So softly, Keith’s hands descend. Folding and fitting into the groves along Allura’s back, they embrace beating, pulsing warmth.

_To hold magic._

Allura already finds herself drowned. She tied an anchor to her own ankle and released her breath before her head hit the water, but still, she finds she is not deep enough yet.

Evidently, she wants her ears to pop. Apparently the ocean floor is not dark enough for the depths of emotion.

Passion, passion, passion.

Passion; a yearn to go deeper.

Emotion; a need to see more.

_How much more of Keith can I possibly let myself see before he wants to turn the other way?_

The next rehearsal comes and weaves around them once again. Only one side of Keith is ever shown, and it’s the most up-done of all.

She only ever wants him to come loose.

Only until she catches a glimpse of a calendar does the effervescing genius click.

The next time they meet at her coffeeshop, she flips the cards. Shows her hands.

She says, “So you know Halloween is coming around the corner, yes?”

Keith smiles. “I know.” He sets his script down beside him, as if he were looking at it in the first place. “I sometimes celebrate my birthday and Halloween together because it’s easier.”

Naturally, Allura gasps. “Happy birthday, Keith! Why didn’t you tell me, we could have done something together!”

The man opens his mouth in trepidatious response. She continues for the both of them, saving the grace of the moment.

“Well you know, my roommates and I usually have a little party for Halloween.” She twirls her hair, “We say ‘party’, it’s more of a… what do they like to call it. A ‘hang.’” She pulls the strands down to the tips, smoothing out the dead ends. “If you’d like to come, I’m sure we can whip up something together pretty quickly for you.”

Keith tilts his head. “Who is ‘we?’”

“Oh, friends from _Rent_. You know most of them already. Lance and Hunk will be there for sure; he’ll probably be the one doing most of the whipping up.”

Allura knows the party isn’t so much of a challenge as it would be a mystery for him, but she’s counting on him being too curious to refuse, regardless.

“It’s fine, really. You don’t have to do anything-“

“Perhaps. But I want to.” She lays a hand over Keith’s script. He sits up a little straighter from his languid draping on the couch.

His eyes search her face. “You know Lance is a piece of work,” he chuckles.

“I think that’s what makes him even more lovable.”

Her laugh spurs on his smile. They share another look, another moment, another pull and Keith nods.

“Alright. I’ll come.” Drumming his hands over his knees, he keeps his voice down low. “I look forward to it.”

Allura looks forward to the clashing and crashing energies of him and Lance. She speculates his preconceived comfort with Hunk, predicts his quick camaraderie with Pidge and wonders how far Keith’s impulsiveness is already rubbing off on her.

She tells her motley crew to expect on her guest. They goad her with their guesses who the mystery guest could be.

They lay it on thick.

She waves it all off, willing the red from her face.

When she pulls Hunk aside for her commissioned confection, he says he’s already got her covered.

She has no time to get him anything else, but sets up the apartment as thematically as she can.

When the last streamer is unwrapped and taped, before Lance can spike their already dubious punch, after Hunk gives her a warm thumbs-up, she gets herself ready.

Halloween is truly her time to let herself go, or pull herself meticulously together. This year is that of the latter, making odd faces in her mirror while she piles on the eyeliner and shadow. Black to coat her lids, black painted over her lips, white wrapping over her body and white draping down her back; Allura makes herself this year foolish and _ghoulish._

Keith walks himself in with his face painted her matching colors, and they make quite a pair.

Allura sweeps her eyes over his costume. She never thought he could call him _cute_ , scarce as she is to say it to his face. Instead she asks,

“Should I call you Jack, instead? Or perhaps you would like me to bow.”

Keith fiddles with one of the shoulders of his costume. “Shiro said it was a good idea because he sings, too.” He looks over Allura’s diaphanous costume briskly. (She tries not to feel appraised.) “Too bad you couldn’t have been Sally,” he shrugs as he laughs.

_Too bad, for certain._

Introductions are redundant, but she still leads him around the apartment to greet her friends together. Every person she walks away from gives her eyes behind Keith’s back. She treks cordially on.

At the crux of the evening, Hunk pulls out the most decadent, masterful cake. Keith holds his arms stiffly by his sides. He’s holding something, _something_ back and Allura wants to know what.

They reconvene to the living room, all talking over themed movies, tossing popcorn to each other’s faces. Keith finds himself flanked by Allura on his left, Pidge to his left, and Allura is most proud of her initial predictions. Keith and Pidge hit it off like old pals, leaving Allura to lean back and simply her time amongst good company.

The whole night, Lance waggles his eyebrows or _whapping_ her arm. She chooses to pay him no mind.

The whole night, Keith’s smile and posture and countenance opens more. If Allura could pick, this is the side she would most like to see most often of.

If Allura had the power, she would make for this night to last for days much more. As it is, her power stays constrained to ambivalent empathy, and the night ends all too fast. One by one her friends take their leave, kissing Allura’s cheek and whispering “ _I still don’t know how that boy is your type._ ” They walk out her door before she can say, “ _Frankly- I don’t know, either._ ”

She looks over her shoulder from the door, seeing Keith readjusting his jacket again.

_And then there were two._

Saying no word, breaking no silence, she waits for him to bridge it over himself. Abruptly he smacks his hands over his knees, and she finds the moment succinctly _broken._

Yet ever still with his soft, deft and callous voice he announces, “Well.” He stands. “I think I should get going.” He slinks his back that seems a permanent fixture to his person and strolls to the front door.

Allura watches from where she stands, the fluid roll of his hips, the certain set of his shoulders, the heavy movement of his thighs. Maybe one of these days, she can think to say of how _delicious_ she finds it all.

He comes into her space. Shares her air. Coalesces with her warmth. It only takes the outstretch of one of her arms for him to catch the drift.

Together they descend. Inwards they diffuse.

Allura again wraps her arms tight above Keith’s shoulders. He again tucks himself against her, pulling her against him.

_Every time like the first._

Their goodbyes might as well last as long as the event itself.

_Can I be blamed to be so reluctant to pull my arms away?_

Ever so slowly, Keith unties himself from Allura. He lays his hands on her elbows, searching again. _What is it he wants to find_ , the woman may only find out on the opposite side of eternity. Every second brings a new shift, a new measure distance that Allura makes herself be strong enough to bare. But the distance brings silence.

One last final goodbye, and Keith crosses the other side of the threshold. His parting shouldn’t be so moving, so heavy she knows, she _knows._ But she feels it.

She feels the heavy in her heart, the sinking in her head and she longs to regain light.

When she pulls her comforter over her face that night, too whimsy and unrooted to bring herself to the surface of reality, she gasps.

“That bastard!” She sits straight up in her bed. “He left with all the hot chocolate!”

For a second she fumes.

The wick quickly dies.

Then, she laughs. She giggles to herself as she slips back under the blanket, closing her eyes with emotion emotion still strumming through her. She slips her eyes closed with a smile on her face.

_Magic it must surely be._

Under Keith’s spell Allura must have surely fallen, for she finds herself saying _yes_ to near every opportunity he offers to meet. So charmed is she, that the proactivity of her yes finds itself equal with his.

 _Coffee today?_ will say she.

 _I’ll see you there_ , will he reply.

Charmed, charmed.

She’ll get herself done up, under the air of something like sorcery, _something like seduction_? and remember to bring her script at the last moment. She’ll pat her pockets for her keys, her phone and wallet and unlatch the deadlock. She’ll open the door with no second thought, only looking ahead and above but then-

_bonk_

She looks in the now, and down to her feet.

_Is this… what I think it is?_

Allura looks down to the pile to her feet. She whips her face from one side of the hallway to the other, waiting for a sign of receding footsteps. The shadow of a body turning the corner. Her first instinct is _who?_ But quickly that is answered. Then the next comes _what_? Which is easy to quantify, judging by the packets and packets of hot chocolate, the candles, the mug. The more her heart settles, the more articulate her thoughts resound back to her.

All thoughts point back to _Keith._

Keith, who during the Halloween party, put all of the hot chocolate in his backpack to transfer them from the kitchen to the living room in one easy trip. Keith, who Allura remembered only until later, accidentally stole all of it because he never actually took the hot chocolate _out_.

Keith, who now Allura is realizing, made a trip to the front of her apartment to drop off the guilelessly pilfered hot chocolate, as well as some apology gifts of his own.

Her smile stretches and snaps stitches. The woman’s face positively beams, she absolutely cannot let the moment drip away; she dams up her proof.

She pulls out her phone with jittering hands.

She takes a photo.

After pulling all the goodies to the other side of her door, she sends a text to her happy culprit. “ _I was wondering where all of my mugs had went!”_

She imagines Keith snickering as he looks down to his phone. He responds not a moment after, “ _I totally forgot I even had them in my bag.”_

At work she shows Plaxum the text. Her eyes look up and down from Allura’s phone to Allura’s eyes and she says it’s a likely story.

But Allura knows Keith can’t be anything but overwhelmingly honest. Heartbreakingly earnest. She keeps every faith in him, pulls her phone away from Plaxum’s face and drifts along with the ribbon-snapping of time until the next rehearsal.

Until it comes, her glowing smile cannot be dimmed. It can’t help but spread. She sines so bright, she radiates so warm that Coran approaches her before their next rehearsal. He pulls her to the side, looks to her face and says,

“You’re glowing, dear girl.”

He winks.

Her glow must take a discernible colored tint.

Allura holds her hands over her cheeks, chancing a quick gaze to Keith. And Lance. And Hunk. Oblivious they all stand, gesturing their hands above and around their heads as they warm up with Kolivan.

Pidge, however. Pidge is her tricky and all-knowing outlier, grinning sharp. Smirking dangerous. Pidge from her precarious tech perch, hears all and sees all and Allura knows she is going to be her every consequence.

Allura turns her head back down to Coran. She rests a hand over his elbow and searches his eyes. She holds on to his patience and pulls out every understanding he could hold in his heart.

“Hey Coran,” she whispers. “Can I… can I speak with you a few moments?”

They both look out to the crowd around the piano, going strong. Back to each other.

Coran postures them away from the crowd. He leans in close to her, keeping his voice low in kind.

“Of course. What ever is on your mind?”

The lady brings her hand back down to herself, wraps it around her arms and holds herself as she implores.

“Do you really,” she fights herself to keep her chin up. To not crowd in herself farther. “Do you really think I’m glowing?”

Coran fights himself to keep his laughter withheld. He tries not to answer the question he _thinks_ she’s asking. He answers candid, “Why I think you look absolutely radiant.” He asks in return, “Did we _not_ want to be glowing?”

Allura releases her hands from clutching her forearms. “Coran, do you think I’m silly? To be glowing?”

“Now why do you think you’d be silly?”

The woman shrugs with her whole upperbody. “Because it’s all been so fast?” She throws her hands up. “Because I’ve only known Keith for… maybe a few weeks? And I’m already _glowing_? You’re not the only one to have noticed, Coran.” She rolls her eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Perhaps now is the most genuine Coran has inquired. “What do you mean?”

Allura huffs. “I must be a silly girl. I must be. I’m trying not to be and I don’t want to let my emotions run away with me, I would hate for my heart to rule my head but I feel as though that is exactly what is happening. I’ve only known Keith for little over a month, and yet, I’ve entrusted to him so much.” She shakes her head. “I’ve told him so much. I’ve told him of my… my afflictions. Of so many of my insecurities, my hopes, my dreams. I told him of my bisexuality without so much as a blink and really, I still don’t know what to make of it, myself. I invited him to spend Halloween with my friends and I and we celebrated his birthday together.”

She then gapes. “We spent his _birthday_ together, Coran! He hit it off so well with Pidge, they have such similar humor. Keith had such wonderful chemistry with Hunk and Lance and Pidge and I can’t help but imagine this rapport growing so much stronger."

Patiently Coran listens, watching her face rise with hope and excitement. In the next moment it drops with worry and endless _what if’s_. He’s sure to keep up. He’s sure to wait until her final word.

“Yet with everything going so well,” Allura continues, “and with how quickly we’ve gotten to know each other, there’s… something else.” She drums her fingers over her leg. “I don’t know why, and I don’t know if I can perfectly explain it, but every time we meet I get very anxious. Every time. _Every_ time. Every time we go out for coffee, every time we take a walk, my mind refuses to stay in the moment. I can’t stop my hands from shaking.”

This says Red Flag to Coran if nothing ever did.

“I don’t know why I’m this way.”

Coran reminds himself he’s not the lady’s father, keeping his hands where they are, lest they raise her chin in feeble consolation. More, more he waits.

“I know he doesn’t look my type at all, and I know he’s working through things but… I don’t know if am prepared to deal with it, too. I don’t know if I like the way I feel so overwhelmed.” With every word, her volume slips meeker. “Wait.” Suddenly her voice shoots right back up. “I’ve told you he did drugs, right?”

The man rightly balks. “ _No Allura,_ you certainly did not.”

“Well he has. Does.” She makes an ambivalent movement with her hands. “He’s told me of many of the things he’s done, but I promise Coran, I wouldn’t have asked him to come if I didn’t think I could trust him. He’s done… bad things, she delicately alludes, “but he fights against it everyday. He’s getting better, truly.”

Coran looks down to her hands, and she’s right. Even speaking of Keith has turned her speech and her palms to conspicuous restlessness. Curious.

“I like him, Coran.” He thinks she didn’t mean to intone quite that much. “But I want to remain in control of myself. I want to be smart about this, you know?” No longer meek, but soft her voice remains. “I want to accrue for myself as much wisdom as I possibly can.”

“You’re a smart girl, Allura.” With all confidence, like a promise, he makes to eradicate every one of Allura’s frets. “I know you’ll do what’s right. I do have one last question for you, however.”

She smiles, and Coran can see at least on Keith’s end how the boy could be so quickly taken.

“What is it?”

“What draws you to him?”

The director lets Allura ruminate on the question the rest of the rehearsal. She had immediate answers for him in the moment, but she wonders if they were enough.

During girls’ night later in the week, her friend Shay and Pidge give her another chance tomake apologetics.

“I see the way you look at this guy during rehearsal, Allura.” Pidge shamelessly, gleefully calls her out. “What do you even see in this guy?”

“That, I too was wondering.” Shay adds the buffer to Pidge’s unrounded harsh. “If you say that he is so overwhelming, if you say that you feel so conflicted when you both meet, what then keeps you drawn to him?”

What Allura _likes_ and what keeps her _drawn_ are two separate questions. For now, she overlooks the semantics and answers the question she thinks is more polite for company.

Pidge snatches the remote, turning down the volume for the movie droning in the background.

“Well,” Allura slides her eyes to the right. They move as she talks. “I just find him so _interesting._ ”

Already, Pidge doesn’t seem to be buying it. Regardless, the lady proceeds.

“I like the way he walks. I like the way he laughs-“

“Sure, whenever he bothers to.”

“Pidge!” Allura smacks her arm, scandalized. “He laughs more than that and you know it. Anyway, I like his laugh. His smile. I just… I feel good with him. He listens to me and I feel like,” she eyes Pidge. “Now don’t laugh.” She inhales. “I feel like we just have a lot of good chemistry.”

“You feel as though your chemistry with Keith is balanced with the nervousness you feel?” Shay interjects.

Silly, Allura naturally feels. She knows that with however good her moments with Keith are, the moments after creep up to her with taunting shadows.

Her silence is indicative enough. Shay moves in on it.

“A word of advice?”

“Please,” Allura asks heartily.

“Though you may feel chemistry abounding between you two, though you may like the time you spend together; though this may be the first time you have experienced feelings these strong, or you like the way he holds you-“

Allura _burns._

“-Be careful always to guard your heart.” Shay folds her hands in her lap. “Seek wisdom always, do not be quick to give everything away. It feels natural and good to share with someone important to you things that lay on your heart, but try to keep them close.”

Pidge meets Allura’s eyes next.

“Don’t go too fast.”

She finds it’s all a little too late for that.

The next time Keith and Allura meet, they stop into the shop for coffee before walking. When they receive their orders, Plaxum leans in close to give advice of her own.

“Stay safe, alright?”

It’s heavier than Allura wants to acknowledge.

Then Plaxum quickly shoos her away, grabbing Keith by the collar and making him bend an ear. For a second his eyes open wide. Within the next moment it’s smoothed to a smirk and a snort, Keith saying “You got it.”

Under the falling mist and embracing grey, they take their time to plant their steps as they stroll. Allura wastes none of it for fervent inquisition.

“What did Plaxum say to you?” she asks as she crowds closer to Keith.

He snickers, laughter light like the tangible air around them. “She said if I ever hurt you, she’d castrate me.” He exhales. “Slowly.”

_I don’t doubt it for a second._

“You know she’d make good on her word, without hesitation. Yes?”

Keith nods, “I believe it.”

Distantly, a fear plants itself in Allura’s mind that is too deep to unroot. It slithers around her mind, hissing and whispering in a voice dripping like acid, _Too quick is he to believe._ And the woman cannot help but listen.

_Just how much of what I say does he take at face value? Just how far may I push his trust until he begins to question?_

Then another thought, as abrasive as the last:

_Just how far could Keith push me?_

To abate her webbing doubts, she makes herself speak over them. While they stroll, she asks him more of his old life. He answers candidly, fully, answering questions she didn’t even move to ask. He asks her passions, where do they lie, tell an adventure; she answers abundant.

She asks about his bike.

“I like it cause it’s fast.”

That much Allura could already infer. She digs a little more.

“It uh…” Keith laughs to himself. “It helps to silence the demons in my head.”

Allura doesn't ask which.

“I like it because it helps me feel like I’m autopilot.”

She decidedly _doesn’t_ like this far-off look. She doesn’t like how a few simple words after a simple question wrought.

Allura doesn’t like how her arms may start to hurt with how much she has to dig.

Keith comes back to himself on his own. His eyes stop their dilation and he looks down to his hands. To Allura’s. He picks up his pace.

“You have a scooter though, right?”

“I do. Just a little moped to get me around campus.” She’s sure to keep her look level. Her voice even. Her gaze present. “I’ve never had the need to be free, as it were. My father had a bike- a Harley- and he always road it to escape. Escape his troubles, his anger, his inner demons.” She smiles. “But I’m not so angry. Not so plagued. I just need something to help me go, not necessarily go _away_.”

As a matter of fact, the only thing she particularly wants to be gone away from her is the fluttering and heat whenever they embrace goodbye.

_If only for my own wellness and sanity._

And sleep at night.

Her insomnia induced by winding daydreams and smothering smiles keep her up until well after their final parted word. Every word exchanged pulls her heart in one direction, but the resounding wisdom makes her head cling tight to another.

Divided and restless and anxious and whirl-winding is she.

_I just want to know how to feel!_

More pertinent and important,

 _I just want to get myself to_ sleep!

When Allura wakes, it’s to her mind swallowing the notes of her role. So rote is all the music that her memory conducts the entire symphony as she gets ready for her day.

So excited and eager is she, that she bounds into the main stage with all the illumination of the night. So prepared and ebullient is she now, that she pays no mind to her nagging cellphone as she warms up. So overflowing with emotions raw and unrefined, that she doesn’t notice a missing presence until Lance points it out.

“Allura?” He points to an ambiguous space next to her. “Where’s your boy toy?”

She looks to her side. She looks to the little crowd huddled on the stage. She looks to the doors, to the dressing rooms, back to downstage and seeing not.

“Excuse me, Coran.” She shuffles away from the bodies, diving to her purse and clambering to her phone.

A message awaits. Meaningless, the first few attempts to read it go completely over Allura’s head. Then she takes a deep breath. Slowly she lets it out. She reads again.

“ _I just talked to Keith a little while ago._ ” That much she can comprehend. “ _He won’t be going to rehearsal tonight._ ” That much Allura can reconcile in her mind.

After all the pieces fit together, she finally takes note of the messenger. It’s the same classmate that contacted Allura about Keith originally.

_Curious._

She texts him back, fearing the worst, hope fighting to light its own embers.

“ _Do you know what happened? Is he okay?”_

She is loathe to recall how he almost OD’d just the week before with another friend in a public park.

_Could this time have been his last second chance?_

_Could Keith have gone so far this time?_

_Could Keith be too late to be saved?_

She shakes her head. Clenches her hands. Stops staring at her phone. Exhaling all the toxin built up in her chest, she lays her phone back in her purse and strides into rehearsal again. She announces,

“Keith won’t be joining us this time.” Her smile is wry and brittle and thin. “He’s seemed to be caught in a kind of emergency, so there’s nothing we can do.”

She keeps the rest of the messages to herself.

“ _He’s been in the hospital since last night.”_

She ignores the gasps from her cast.

“ _Keith looks terrible, but you should see his bike._ ”

She puts everything but the very second she occupies, off to the fringes. She lives and moves and breathes and sings only second by second. She can endure no longer intervals.

Keith’s understudy goes through the motions with her, and she knows the chemistry she once held cannot be fabricated. She wishes against all her _rationale_ that the audience won’t tell, themselves.

As they get into places, the grief begins.

“Keith is quitting the show? What an asshole,” they whisper harshly. “And just before dress rehearsal, too!”

Allura doesn’t want to let herself agree.

“What happened? What’s wrong with him?” they demand. “He was so good, he was going to make the show.”

Framed as if Keith made it within his will to sabotage the production.

The rest of the rehearsal proceeds with oppressive contention, Allura bearing the brunt. Every other time she turns, an actor sighs. A stagehand rolls their eyes. Every time she walks on stage, every time she kisses or embraces or sings to her new Roger, all she can think of how it _isn’t_ Keith.

When they finish, Coran keeps his notes for Allura and their substituted Roger to a minimum.

He releases them.

He bows his head, drawing out a sigh of his own.

There’s no linger this time. Nothing for which Allura would wait. Nothing to greet her or embrace her or occupy her except the incendiary wit of the bloody damn what-ifs. 

_What_ if _the show is ruined?_

Keith made only one part of the whole theatre body; surly the entire show can’t be ruined.

_What if I do terribly?_

Acting in this arena is neither work or play. Allura can channel her focus.

_What’s happened to Keith?_

She mustn’t go there.

She mustn’t go in frantic, uncharted waters of her fretfulness. Yet with every new worry to accost her, her mind serves to provide its own ores. She mustn’t badger Keith’s friend with any new details for they know little more, as far as Allura can tell. Yet with every word that doesn’t come from Keith himself, she drifts herself into rockier white waters.

_We could postpone the show; give our understudy more time to be comfortable._

Impossible. The show is the weekend after Thanksgiving.

_We could-_

They can’t.

_We should-_

They won’t.

_We must!_

They mustn’t.

Allura tosses and turns that night, letting her doubts amuse themselves. Letting her hope whisk away with a candle flame.

Dress rehearsal comes too fast for her tumultuous heart.

_Let me settle and let me feel._

Coran lets her speak to him for just a few brief moments, then ushers her to get dressed. Get done up. Get ready.

“The show must go on.”

So it is spoken, so it shall be done.

Allura pulls her smile from her chest, stretches it across her face. She doesn’t let herself think of Keith’s face for another’s; doesn’t compare the taste of their lips or the smolder of their voice.

She doesn’t let herself pace before her cues to abate her anxiety. As she waits in the wings, she prays fervent and long and hard where she stands.

_For some divine intervention._

Allura knows that more than magic is needed to restore what the show once had. She knows that no amount of magic is going to stop all the questions thrown her way. Mystery and mysticism won’t appease her compact skepticism. Meditation won’t stop her wandering mind from tracing back to Keith’s condition.

Melodies and music won’t stop her from her ever-divided, ever conflicted, ever anxious heart.

Blessedly, bows are called for quickly quickly. She shuffles on stage, stands next to her Roger while Coran claps and whistles from the farthest seat in the audience. His beaming is bright to _blinding_ to where she stands.

_If only I can be the same._

As cast and crew gather around on the stage for their final critiques and kudos before opening night, the woman’s attention is even more webbed than before.

Then they break.

Her night brings no neon glow, only florescent hyperawareness as she goes back to her room. She thinks of every way she could have improved, how the show could have shined, how Keith could have _been_ there,

and then she receives a text.

The words register instantly.

“ _I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there.”_

She has no energy left to fear, much less energy to fear the worst.

“ _I won’t be out of here until at least the end of the week, so I can’t make the show._ ”

The implications she’s already acknowledged. Naught to be said aloud.

“ _But if you’ll let me-_ “ choice wording, “ _I’d still love to see it.”_

She can hear his voice, see his glittering eyes as she skims his words.

“ _I’d love to see you.”_

Her heart _wants_ to beat and it wants to leap and it wants to skip but her energy is dismissive. Negligent. Absent.

On the sidewalk holding her phone, she stops in place. She looks down to her phone. Up to the greying of the sky. Up to the purple and pink and orange skies.

She looks in to wonder how much and how quickly her heart has felt.

She types her response.

“ _If it’s all the same, I think I’d rather you not._ ”

Back into her purse she slips her phone. Away she carries Keith’s word.

_So much. And so fast._

Allura recalls how beautiful his bike was when Keith showed it to her. How badly he seemed to need to _escape,_ to silence. How hurting he was for peace. He remembers its sleek build, his thunderous engine.

_Riding to escape his demons._

Now, she thinks, might be the right time to wonder which demons he was silently facing.

_If he made to silence them once and for all._

She stops in front of her door.

_What an unbidden thought!_

From whatever arbitrary place it sprung, she can’t get it out of her head. She can’t refute its overwhelming truth.

When she dresses herself before opening night, she adds someone new for which to pray. As she wrangles with her mascara, she fights her unsteady hands.

Fights against he noise.

Clambers towards the music.

Materializes for herself silence.

Humbles herself to beseech her creator and call out her woes. She calls Plaxum and Nyma, praying together and communing together and hoping together. Hoping as one.

Allura hopes _for_ one.

When they finish, Plaxum and Nyma squeeze Allura’s hands. She kisses their cheeks. They rub each other’s shoulders, step behind the curtains and wait for cue.

The show goes on.

Allura feeds off the energy of the crowd, letting it fuel her forward. It makes her smile a little more genuine. The heat swelters her, boils her down and evaporates all other superfluous thought.

She devours the storm of their applause. Their laughter. She takes her bows and it is only by their release that she comes away from her space on Avenue B.

The rest of the week progresses the same. She wakes, eats quickly and idles around busy work or takes a transition shift until the matinée. She does house chores until the evening performance.

Every new audience offers something new to Allura. Some she has to wrench harder to be awarded of their laughter. Others laugh almost too easily; lengthening the show by a good ten or fifteen minutes with their raucous enjoyment. Some help her mute the demon in her head. Others remind her that she is not Mimi; she is still Allura with a different name.

She doesn’t appreciate those nearly as much as her raucous ones. The ones who enable her escapism. She traipses as far from her reality as she can, for she knows the moment she steps off the stage, when the curtain closes, the time will go too much too fast. 

She’ll go back to classes, elusive of mind. She’ll take more shifts at the coffee shop again, smiling faker and wider and synthetic than the stage demanded.

She’ll return to deafening silence.

She’ll meet a face she hasn’t seen in a while.

When there's no more parts to be played, no more roles to be filled, Allura has no grounds or basis to behave.

A tentative smile does more to Allura’s heart than she wants to admit.

“Hey."

_The show is over._

Head knowledge and heart knowledge are always the hardest to coincide.

“Hello, Keith.”

Keith keeps a tight frame hanging around the cashier, Allura eyeing him from the other side. He beseeches her eyes. She watches the clock.

Pursuing her eyes around the shop, there's not a lot of hustle or bustle. The few customers that have come in have already taken their seats, oblivious and ignorant of Allura's whirlwinding wonderings. There are so many wonders, so many questions, answered _what if’s_ but she starts with one.

“How… how are you?”

He looks down to his leg. Even in the threshold of winter’s dawn, Keith wears loose capris that free his calves.

_And my mystery._

All down Keith's right side, the skin has been marred, reddened and bandaged. It looks disfigured, frightening and painful.

Keith says, “I’m alright.”

Allura looks to his arm. His legs. His tired eyes. Her new strongest wonder is how long it will take until one of them cracks. Breaks.

She has no more time for his fronts. She no longer has patience to suppress her prying.

“Clearly you’re not.” She steps from behind the counter, resting her back on the wall beside her. “What’s happened to you?” She points as she says, “To you arm. Your legs? And apparently your bike?” She looks away. “What happened to the show?”

With every word, Keith folds more into himself. He wrenches the words out.

“I was in an accident.” He exhales. “That’s why I couldn't make it to the show.”

“You were in an accident, an accident." Allura nods slowly. “On your bike, that must have been very scary. How did it- if you don't mind me asking- how did it happen?”

Keith grimaces. “Someone was speeding behind me. He caught my bike a bit, then I slid. So did my bike, under me.”

“And to think you’re living to tell the tale.” Allura gasps.

“I um.” He swallows. “I-“ he shifts. “I wasn't actually counting on it."

“What do you mean?” She looks around the shop one more time. No listeners. “As in you thought you were going to die from the accident?”

“No I mean,” he grips the straps of his backpack. “I was counting on it.”

Ultimate silence floats around the coffeeshop. Soft classic rock jars the ambiance, worming its way around Allura's attention as she absorbs his words.

“Counting on…” She holds her arms over each other. “Oh, Keith.”

Grasps their meaning.

This time, she doesn’t embrace him. She doesn’t let herself be held.

Keith doesn’t let her dwell in the moment for too long, because he continues.

“Everything in my head just got so loud and I… I wanted some quiet. I wanted to go away, I wanted it to go away.”

_He let it get too far._

Gripping the straps tighter, he holds his head recumbent.

“I know I keep… being the way I am.” He looks his eyes upwards. “But you help me be better. You make me want to be better,” he holds back the river swelling in them, “and I don't want to think if I lost you, too."

The woman keeps his gaze. She sweeps over the shop floor one last time, then nods her head towards the staff break-table. The few steps for the walk over is the only time she gets to plan her response.

 _Grace. Remember grace. Hold on to hope._ She exhales. _Keep magic where you keep salt._

“I think…” It is Allura’s turn to bow her head down. “I don’t want to lose you either, Keith. I want to know you, I want to keep knowing you. I want you to be honest with me, but I don’t want either of us to keep hurting, either.” She screws her lips. “I don't want to lose you, but now is not our time.”

Keith whips his head up, eyes shining. Pulling Allura right back in. “Not our time, now. But… maybe later?"

_I swear, this surging and receding hope is going to be the death of me._

Perhaps not the most delicate time to speak of death. She speaks of light and life, instead.

“Don’t count on me, Keith. I could let you down."

“Not nearly as much as anyone else has. ‘Later’ is all I need.”

“Maybe, Keith." Allura corrects with a sad smile. “Maybe later will be the time for us."

He smiles, ever so delicately wider. “'Maybe later’ is fine with me.”

Then he rests a hand on her arm.

 _There must be something wrong with me if I still feel his palm_ burning.

Then he takes his hand away, takes a step back and exhales a final time. He dares one last glance. She mouths a silent word to him, wraps her arms around her chest and watches him walk out the shop.

_Am I letting him walk away?_

Perhaps Allura is simply setting him free.

The rest of her shift is spent actively trying to forget the way his sauntering steps sounded as he walked out. Shay comes from the back of the barista station, runs a hand up and down Allura's back. _Maybe later-_ Allura wants to be drowned with the warmth of her friend’s gentle palm. _Laterness_ in itself Allura wants to come faster, make her closing time come faster so she can deal with her heart and her soul and her diffused hope in solitary despondency.

 _Later_ becomes _now_ and Allura turns off the panini press and drains the sink and takes herself home. Lays herself down. She tosses and turns as she longs for her mind to simply turn off.

It buzzes, hyperactive.

_What if, indeed._

The next day comes and goes much like the last. Her shift schedule changes. The white noise clouding Allura’s mind dials down. Nights grow colder. Blue to black comes sooner. December passes to January and onwards with Allura caught in the eye.

She catches herself thinking of strong, warm arms. Of deep, melodic voices.

She’ll think of something else.

She’ll think how her moped doesn’t let her go fast enough, anymore. One day after class, when she stands with her scooter upright, she plops into the seat dissatisfied. The engine isn't loud enough, she laments. The speedometer doesn't cap high enough. Her hair doesn't whip behind her sharp enough, the air around her doesn't get cold enough. It isn’t big enough.

There's not enough to let her outrun herself.

 _When the snow stops falling and the roads start clearing…_ She unlocks her door. _When the ground stops being so slick, I’ll think about an upgrade._ She seals her decision.

February creeps in without popular fanfare. The greatest demarcation of its arrival are the budding cherry blossoms around the edge of her campus. She looks up to their leaves, a promise of growth.

_Change is the only constant nature knows._

She looks back down. Continues walking. Smiling to herself, she knows her change is likewise on the horizon.

Her restless nights and nagging what ifs are fewer, almost negligent, but no less strong.

She tells Plaxum, “Sometimes I still think of him.” Plaxum will reply, “That's natural.” Allura will tell Pidge, “I think… Maybe sometimes… I’d like to see him again. Catch up.” Pidge laces no tact, “You need to stop thinking so much.” Allura bears herself to Shay. “I still have feelings for him. I still care of him of course, I want him to do well but, he was just _so much_.” Shay will console.

“Handle only what you can, Allura.” A wellspring of patience and wisdom. “Overwhelm yourself not. What Keith was dealing with was much for you to handle, especially for a first love."

Allura blushes, diverts. “I didn’t love him, Shay. It was all too soon for that.” Instead, she combs her fingers through her hair, offering “I think he was in love with me, though.”

Her friend doesn’t even blink an eye. “You think?”

“Well.” The woman holds the ends of her hair. Smoothes the ends. “I think he _thought_ he was.”

“I see.”

Allura feels good to have finally spoken it aloud. She feels no lighter, no heavier. Cathartic, perhaps.

Nights at the coffee shop congest Allura, but nights to herself help purge it out. Her job makes the months go faster. Dark nights make the days go easier. When the cherry blossoms bloom, she knows every day following with be a game of casting lots, but it helps keep her joy against her dwindling happiness.

When the cherry blossoms bloom, she knows her change has come.

She asks to borrow Plaxum’s car, then drives herself to the nearest dealership. She can’t trade in her scooter for anything, (she couldn't even fit it in the car if she wanted to) so she doesn’t belittle anything’s worth.

Allura wants a _bike._

She says as much to the salesman. Patient and knowledgeable is he, steering her away from muscled _crotch-rockets,_ but still keeping her in the Honda family.

Stroking her fingers over leather seats, she thinks back to her father's Night Train. His need to get out and away.

_I’ve come full circle, haven’t I?_

Her hand hastily raises from the seat.

She thinks about the inspiration for her change of heart.

The salesman leads them on.

They walk around the floor talking specs and prices, most of it going over Allura’s head until she can get the bike under her. All she wants is fast. All she needs is light. She needs escape and distraction and simulation, but the man isn’t seeming to grasp her desperation.

Or attention.

Because on the other side of the floor, a familiar smudge of black hair stands relaxed. The man's shirt is relatively tight, leaving little of his figure to the imagination. His sweats are slouchy, swishing and draping every time he moves his legs.

_Could it… could it be?_

Slowly, the man turns to face Allura more.

_High cheekbones._

He seems at peace.

_Sharp chin._

His smile is serene.

_Deep eyes._

Allura thinks there are more arbitrary places to meet Keith, for sure. In the same vein, there are more nurturing heart rates her pulse has taken.

Does she approach? Does she ignore? What if Keith approaches her first; would he be impressed with her being at the dealership? Would he be skeptical? What would he say, what should she reply?

Keith catches her eye. She’s still where she stands. He opens his wide, taking in her appearance piece by piece. He starts to walk towards her, step by step. Allura drops her hands and her guard.

The air is charged, she can feel it. There’s no way to commune again or jump in without tasting the shock, so Allura channels the energy from her stomach to her chest. In her chest, out her lips.

“How are you?”

Truthfully, she can tell, Keith answers. “I’m good. Real good.” He looks around to nowhere in particular. “What are you doing here?” He spots her hand hovering near the seat of the motorcycle. “I mean you’re looking for a bike, yeah. That would make sense. At a dealership.”

The woman giggles, gives him a break. “I am looking for a new bike, you are right.”

“That's real cool.” Awkward grimace. “You know, I… I got rid of mine a little while ago.”

That makes Allura stop. "You sold your bike! Why? It was beautiful.”

Keith morphs from a grimace to a scowl. “After the accident I couldn't ride it well, anyway. I tried taking it to the shop and getting some work done, but I did that and-“ he shrugs. “I figured I couldn’t really trust myself with it, anymore?”

The woman can’t fully commiserate, but understands intimately. “I see. Well I’m sorry, Keith. I know how much it meant to you.” She laughs a bit. “So how do you find your peace and quiet, now? If no longer by those ridiculous pipes of yours.”

Caught and humbled, Keith laughs more wry. “I-“ he makes sure to word carefully, “-take classes. Self defense. They're around the area.”

“Self defense. Like martial arts? Ooh, I think you’d do well at capoeira.”

But he shakes his head. “Like knife-throwing. I take knife throwing.”

Quickly Allura sweeps her eyes over Keith. He sees a fencer’s build in him, so she can't say she's terribly surprised.

“And you're feeling better?”

“A lot better." He looks it. Says it with conviction. “A lot better."  
“I'm glad for you, Keith.”

However much gladness that was accumulating is interrupted by their long-suffering audience of one. Allura’s representative clears his throat, and she is immediately reminded of her open surroundings. She wraps her conversation and emotions up neat and tight.

“Right. Excuse me. Well it was good to see you, Keith. I'm glad to hear that you're doing better. I’m going to take a while with this, so don’t let me keep you any longer.”

Unbidden, her mind cries to _keep him permanently, this time._

Obstinately she fights against it, turning around back to peruse the bikes again. Before she can take a step away, a hand clasps tight against her wrist.

Keith looks down to his outstretched hand. Up to Allura’s raised brow. He looks just as shocked as she, which she finds curious.

He plows on. “I know you have to go and everything, but you said-“ then quickly shuts himself up.

_I’ve said a great many things, whatever could he mean this time?_

“What is it, Keith?"

It’s _a lot_ , is what it is. It’s a lot of things that the woman has been trying to forget for about 3 months.

“It’s up to you, and I know it's been a while, but…”

It has been a while. Quite a while later since their previous meeting.

_Oh. That’s precisely what he means, isn't it?_

He looks up to her, striking as always. Thrilling and electrifying.

“Is it later, Allura?”

_It is._

“I said not to get your hopes up, Keith.”

He loosens a finger off her hand. “I know.”

“Remember. _Maybe_.”

Keith slackens the grip of his hold. “I know."

She looks deep into his eyes, looking for something, something she doesn’t know what. She looks around the dealership, machines of chaos and unpredictability and freedom tangible. She looks to the salesman’s waiting, vexing face.

Allura snaps the conversation and her heartstrings out loose.

“I think I can make later, now.”

Keith’s face looks fresher. He looks more alive. His arms have completely healed, any scarring on his leg completely concealed by his sweats. Anything else about him, he’s not moving to hide.

She thinks there's no time like the present.

She thinks there’s no sense in stringing him along.

_I think I’m ready for the now._

Allura doesn’t get to ask Keith why he was in the dealership in the first place, but she finds it redundant. He’s with her, and that’s all she needs. He’s _better,_ and that’s what she’s been waiting for. Not fully healed, but restoring with every breath.

She thinks she can’t wait to see him get even better than now.

She thinks she’s blessed to be part of the process.

As they walk around the shop, he tells her everything she's missed. As they scope out bikes, she tells him about the show. He laments his absence. She promises a private encore when they go home.

Thankfully, none more thoughts plague her from their time together. Her hands remain still. Her breath stays slow and calm.

No more thoughts? Well that’s not entirely true. No thoughts, but one cycle through their head the rest of the day.

_I think I’m ready to fall in love._

Allura prefers this kind of restlessness of all.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone wants me to tell the backstory for this fic, I'll happily (or trepidatiously :P ) do so~


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